


Songs of Innocence and Experience

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, Misunderstandings, hard to stay mad after the world doesn't end, it took them six thousand years but they're learning to use their words, past Aziraphale/others, they make up pretty quick though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 23:24:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18788374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Crowley had a set of expectations for how things would go, once they started. And though the moment begins with an impulse, he'd rehearsed for it's eventual coming.He just didn't realize he was working from the wrong script.





	Songs of Innocence and Experience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DictionaryWrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/gifts).



> I almost exclusively write Aziraphale as being far on the not-sex-having side of the ace spectrum, with Crowley being his exception after some thousands of years of acquaintance and trust. So if you come to me for that, fair warning, this is not it.
> 
> This may be the only time I ever write a more sexually adventurous/previously experienced Aziraphale, I don't know, but after the subject came up in a chat a while back, I kept thinking about this potential conversation.
> 
> Dictionary, I hope you still write your version, because I'm sure it'll be different and exceptional. But some days you need to bake the cake and some days you just want to eat the cake, so... this is the cake for you to just sit back and hopefully enjoy.

    Crowley kisses him on impulse. It seems to be the right thing to do. They’ve come out the other side of a near apocalypse together, not to mention everything else… and Aziraphale kisses him back! Aziraphale bends to him so _sweetly_ , as if he’d only been waiting all this time… waiting for Crowley to reach for him, make love to him…

 

    “Oh, angel…” He sighs, Aziraphale relaxed and dreamy in his arms, his lips kiss-stung, his gaze soft and heated. “Waited too long to do that.”

 

    “Mm, yes, you have…”

 

    “I want you… I have, for so long, I’ve-- But I want you to know, I’d never-- I don’t want you to be nervous.”

 

    “I’m not nervous about sex.” Aziraphale laughs. It’s a surprised sound, a gentle sound. A surpris _ing_ sound.

 

    “... You’re not? I mean good! Because I don’t want you to be.”

 

    “I’m not.” He nods encouragingly, with a smile that suggests that Crowley is being ridiculous. Crowley doesn’t think he is being, he’d only wanted to put Aziraphale at ease about it, to say he wouldn’t push. But suppose Aziraphale had been waiting as long as he had? Thinking about it, mentally preparing himself, longing for Crowley’s touch, imagining what it could all be, building it up for himself as much as Crowley has done all these years…

 

    He’d sort of assumed maybe Aziraphale was immune to lust, but there’s love, after all. And… and it feels nice to think he trusts him so much. That he looks at him and thinks _oh yes, I can give myself to him and everything will be just right_ , or at least that nothing would be wrong. But he’d been rehearsing how it would go in his head, and he doesn’t know how to edit his script on the fly, he’d seen himself gently coaxing, practiced in front of the mirror, phrases like ‘we don’t have to do anything more than this tonight’, and ‘I’ll be gentle, I won’t ever hurt you’. He’d built up so much of his idea of their first time around… well, Aziraphale being an angel, and him being a demon, and how it seemed natural to have to reassure. But he doesn’t need to prove his goodness, his care-- he’s done that, of course he has. Just in other contexts. Why should he have expected Aziraphale would forget, that it was only him? Still, it leaves him with no idea what he _should_ say, to a confident and prepared lover.

 

    “Good. Erm… Yes. If you have an idea of what will feel good, of course, I just-- I want you to enjoy whatever we do.”

 

    “I know what feels good, for me.” He gives another slow nod.

 

    “Oh. You, er… you’ve tried…?” Crowley gestures. So odd to even picture Aziraphale masturbating, but… well, it’s a pretty picture, sure.

 

    “A few things. More than a few, really.”

 

    Crowley stops. “What?”

 

    “Though not everything bears repetition, and of course there are some things I don’t need to try once to know my opinion on.” Aziraphale carries on calmly, as if he hadn’t just shattered Crowley’s very understanding of the world. Tried things with _other people_? He clings to Crowley a little more tightly, draws him in a little closer. “I like to be _fucked_ , vigorously. _Possessed_. Desired above all else. Oh, yes, dear, many men have desired me.”

 

    “Aziraphale, I…” Crowley swallows, his own hold tightening in response. He does not have a script for this. “How many?”

 

    “How many have _desired_ me? Countless. I am a _bit_ more particular with who might have me. Did you really think in all this time no one ever has?”

 

    “I did, yeah. You’re an angel.”

 

    “Angels _fuck_ , Crowley.”

 

    On the one hand, Crowley absolutely does not want to imagine anyone else with Aziraphale, he really doesn’t. Nor think of how he might measure up. On the other hand, he would like to hear him say ‘fuck’ again, and often.

 

    “I never thought I’d hear you say the word ‘fuck’.” He says.

 

    “A day of firsts.”

 

    Evidently not, but Crowley doesn’t say that, it sounds too mean and he doesn’t want to start a fight. And that’s not what he’s upset about, not exactly. He’s half-sick and half-aroused and one hundred percent confused. They were supposed to do this together, weren’t they? He was supposed to gently induct Aziraphale into the world of the carnal, watching him give himself to such pleasures for the very first time, demon leading angel. That’s how it goes, sex, doesn’t it?

 

    “So how many-- no, no, don’t… Sorry I asked.” He blushes.

 

    “Enough.” Aziraphale smiles, pure come-on. “Men have promised me so much, Crowley… promised me gifts, promised me sweetness, promised me ecstasy beyond any I’d ever known-- well, difficult for any mortal man to deliver on that third one, but… some have certainly tried.”

 

    “I could.” He says, his mouth dry, his heart beating hard. When did it become so hard to breathe? “I could give you those things. I could give you whatever you want, you know. _Real_ ecstasy, I can give you that. No one ever has, but I can.”

 

    “Oh… Crowley…” Aziraphale’s fingers play through his hair, he gives him a teasing pout. “I have tasted ecstasy of the most _divine_ sort, you know. Will you measure up to that for me? Oh, would you?”

 

    _Angels fuck_ , he thinks, and he feels cold and very, very sick, but he’s also so hard where he presses close to Aziraphale, and there’s no way that goes without notice…

 

    “You’ve-- you’ve done-- in-- Up there?”

 

    “Of course. Nothing against people, but there are things they just can’t do, and you can never be yourself with them… Why wouldn’t I have done? I mean, surely _you’ve_ \-- with other demons? I presume demons also _fuck_ , my dear.”

 

    “Oh, demons fuck. This demon-- will absolutely--! But no, I haven’t with other demons, why would I? I mean, look at them, _you_ wouldn-- Oh-- Aziraphale… you haven’t, have you? I mean, with a demon?”

 

    “No. Well…”

 

    In the pause that comes after that ‘well’, all six thousand years of Crowley’s life on earth plus some flash before his eyes. The _idea_ , the idea of another demon, maybe one he knows, of another demon talking to Aziraphale, his own lovely, sweet Aziraphale… Even the nicest demons he knows could never deserve a fraction of Aziraphale’s time, could never be good enough to him, could never be worthy… He may be no innocent in need of defending, led astray by a wicked deceiver, but even so, to think! He might still have been hurt, or ill-used! And if he was going to choose a demon, why had he chosen another? Why hadn’t he wanted Crowley?

 

    Has he really been such a terrible prospect that in all this time, Aziraphale’s never once even asked him? Even floated the idea?

 

    “Oh, don’t look at me like that.” Aziraphale sighs. “I haven’t, no. I was only going to say, I had a _very_ enlightening and very ecstatic early formative experience with an angel who might be a demon _now_. We didn’t keep in touch after, he… I mean, for all I know! Certainly he’s not called on me since the Fall. So either he didn’t like it as much as I did or he’s on your team now, you tell me.”

 

    “He’s definitely a demon, then.” Crowley kisses him again, hard. “Or he’d have called. Surprised he’s not coming after you anyway. Not that I’d stand for any demons bothering you, mind, after not calling for millennia. Oh, no… if any demon’s going to be sniffing after you, he’ll treat you as you deserve or not at all…”

 

    “Defending my honor?”

 

    He doesn’t have to sound so amused, Crowley doesn’t think. “Only saying, if anyone can’t treat you right, I--”

 

    “My dear, I am perfectly capable of dismissing any demon, angel, or man who does not treat me as I desire. I have certainly dealt with my share of men who didn’t, and they don’t get to play.”

 

    “Oh. Well-- good.” Crowley says, confused. One moment he thinks Aziraphale wants him to play along with something, the next he’s not sure at all. He doesn’t know what to think, what to feel, what to do… he doesn’t know who they are to each other. Are they playing a game or is Aziraphale playing with him? He wouldn’t have thought him capable, but then, he hadn’t imagined a lot of things about him. Going with humans, he hadn’t thought Aziraphale would consider that acceptable behavior, he’d thought… Did Aziraphale not really feel for him the way he felt, or was he waiting for Crowley to make the first move, if he always waited for his partners to make the first move? Would he have said yes long ago? Is it Crowley’s fault for not acting, or is it not a question of fault, would they have been another mere fling if he had come to him before all of this? Could he have had him and lost him? Better to wait, and yet…

 

    “Oh, no, no, I like to be treated _very_ nicely, before I give myself over to any pleasures of the flesh…” Aziraphale purrs. “You’ve treated me nicely, Crowley. Dining at the Ritz, strolls through the park, little gifts… I wondered, some time ago, if you were seeking my attentions, but when you never asked, I thought of course it was only how you expressed your friendship. That you wanted to share the things you yourself enjoyed-- finer things, and the pleasure of being out in a bit of nature, I-- I _would_ have, of course.”

 

    “You would have?” Some of the strange panic in him relaxes. “I was always afraid-- Before everything we went through together, I thought… you might not speak to me again if I was-- If you knew that I-- Yeah. That.”

 

    “No, my dear, never. I’d have been yours, if you’d only picked the right time to ask me. You do know how to treat a man…”

 

    “Well. Like to treat you to things.” He shrugs, kissing the corner of Aziraphale’s lips just gently, before claiming his mouth again, trying to get things back on track, trying to find his way back to anything he knows. He wishes he’d rehearsed for _this_ … “Would like to spoil you.”

 

    “And spend all your time on me?”

 

    “Yes.” Crowley promises.

 

    “And take me on long walks on your arm to show me off, because you like to be seen with me?”

 

    “ _Yes_.”

 

    “And be so attentive to me, and be so proud that I’ve chosen you?”

 

    “ _Yesss_.”

 

    “Because I’m an angel, and you can’t resist what I am?”

 

    “Because you’re _my_ angel.” He growls. “And I know you. And I would… _know_ you.”

 

    Is that it? Is that what humans see in him? An angelic aura, the promise of something divine when they come near? Do they crave the peace and light that surround him even when he’s in one of his funny too-human moods? Crowley’s known angels. Aziraphale’s aura is dear to him for nuances he doubts any mortal could read, but it isn’t because he’s an angel. Crowley doesn’t crave _divinity_ , he craves _Aziraphale_. He craves his moods and his habits and his body. Wants to kiss the furrow of his brow and dig his hands into every soft pad of fat, and do unspeakably delightful things to his thighs, and rut against the swell of his belly, and love him.

 

    Aziraphale was _wanted_ , once, for his body. Not in vogue nowadays, but when it had been… Crowley remembers being out together, and the way women looked at him so appraisingly, and the way he’d shuddered and complained about being too attractive, and Crowley had took it to mean, then, that he didn’t want any humans looking at him like that. He’d never questioned his own interpretation. Now, though… does he miss it? Miss sparking _desire_? Miss men falling over themselves because size meant power, and health, and health meant _vigor_? Even if they don’t see his body that way now, there’s no denying it feels good to bask in his aura. Even Crowley, who would find most whiffs of the holy painful more than pleasurable, could find some pleasure in the gentler warmth that came from sitting near Aziraphale, the security and contentment. And when Aziraphale is happy, the _bliss_. Not because he is an angel, because he is _this_ angel.

 

    “I’ll make you feel wanted.” He promises.

 

    “I do feel wanted.”

 

    “Yeah, but-- Every day, I mean. Every day, Aziraphale. I’ll show you off. Show you off in all the best places. We’ll go in my car and I’ll open the door for you, I’ll open all the doors for you, take you to the opera like we used to go, sometimes, remember? Take you on my arm, be so proud to be seen with you… all the best restaurants. Everything.”

 

    “And in bed? Will you spoil me there, too?”

 

    “Always. Yeah.” He nods, though he doesn’t feel at all sure he’s capable, now. Not if there’s a _level_ Aziraphale’s accustomed to.

 

    “Oh, Crowley, you do make me happy. You will make me happy.” Aziraphale says just the same, plays with his hair and holds him close. “You know you can give me something no one else ever has-- something they couldn’t. Something real.”

 

    Another slight relaxing in the ball of nerves that’s seized him. “Yesss…”

 

    “ _Time_.” Aziraphale presses his cheek to Crowley. “We could have _time_ together, here on Earth.”

 

    Crowley bites his lip, holds him tighter. “Yeah. Yeah, all the time in the world.”

 

    “Up there, you know… they don’t _want_ it, they don’t see it the same way, there’s no _romance_.”

 

    “I’ll give you romance.”

 

    “And people… you just _can’t_. You can’t get attached, can’t meet more than once or twice. Once you let a man kiss you, you have to think about how much time you can even have before you need to stop it, need to protect yourself. It can never be love. Of course I love them all, but it can never be, you know… personal that way, it can never be a human love, it hurts too much...”

 

    “I can be love-- I mean, I _can love_.”

 

    “All those times… wanting something.” He sighs. “Wanting to be loved and knowing it can’t happen that way, but allowing a fraction. Allowing a man to take me in his arms and make empty promises… to freely give my mouth over, and still keep a bit of distance, or to-- Now and then, more than I normally let… To have _something_ because the world can be lonely. Even if it’s only once, twice… three times, now and then, when they’re sweet, when they want it so badly, when they also know it can’t be any more than what it is, brief…”

 

    “Aziraphale…” Crowley’s stomach feels small. How many times is he meant to promise himself? How many times is he supposed to say yes, he can do that for him? He’s promised time, he’s promised love, what else is Aziraphale waiting for? What else, so that they can move past this bit? Half of what Aziraphale says pleases him, or all of what Aziraphale says pleases half of him, he’s not sure which. He doesn’t want to think about others, and yet he wants this, the confident and bold Aziraphale who knows what he wants, who says filthy things, who expects Crowley to take him hard and rough-- not because he is a demon and rough is all he can be, but because it’s exciting to _him_ , because he, an angel, desires it so. He may not know how to handle him, but he wants him so desperately, so achingly. His experience might well be welcome, even _necessary_ , for some of the things Crowley _wants_ , he just… he doesn’t want old lovers in his head.

 

    “You would have me forget them? Or you would _make_ me?” Aziraphale goads, picking up one of the many tangled threads of Crowley’s thoughts, though ‘forget’ was not it exactly. “Is that what you want, my dear? To stay with me until you have replaced every kiss, every touch, with one of your own?”

 

    “Yes-- Wait, no--” He shakes his head. “Not ‘until’, just… just staying. And kissing, and touching. But-- not ‘until’, there’s no ‘until’.”

 

    “Have me forget about all the boys who’ve sought my lap out in a smoky room? Who’ve stroked at my chest and begged my indulgence above all others? Mm, no… no. Because you know what it is I really want, what I really crave, you know it now and you know which experiences I might well forget on my own and which I hold onto. And I know you want to give me what I truly need, just as I want to give myself to you.”

 

    “Aziraphale, please…”

 

    “You want to replace every man who’s ever brushed a hand across my throat and asked me to follow him to a private room somewhere, though… every man who’s ever pulled me in for a kiss that demanded more? The friends who’ve suggested a casual fuck? The stranger who couldn’t help following me from one establishment to another? Who slid an arm around me on a dance floor and told me what my plans would be for the rest of the evening? Who pressed close to me at the bar and offered to buy me my drinks for the pleasure of my company? Who cornered me in a bathhouse to invite me for a massage? Who groped me near the men’s room of a nightclub and said he could be flexible if I could?”

 

    “Aziraphale, _stop_.” Crowley pulls away. He no longer wants to ask how many, he only feels sick and a bit dizzy. “I don’t want to hear about other men who-- I don’t--”

 

    “I didn’t expect you to be upset by my experience.” Aziraphale blinks.

   

    “I’m not upset because you’ve done it, I’m upset because you’ve rubbed my face in it!” Crowley snaps, throwing his arms in the air. “Like you still-- like after all we’ve done and all the things you’ve said, you believe I don’t have feelings.”

 

    “No-- dearest, that isn’t it at all. I thought-- I thought that my… previous experience was… _spurring you on_ , so to speak.”

 

    “Maybe, but it still doesn’t make me feel good emotionally!” He says. No point arguing there had been a sexual response, an excitement, some desire to write over Aziraphale’s sexual history with his own touch. It would be one thing if it were dirty talk, if he didn’t think it was real, but to imagine lovers… how many lovers? Did it happen in the times that they were parted, or had Aziraphale taken lovers when Crowley was _there_? That’s the thought that wounds him. Not the only thought that wounds him.

 

    “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to be cruel talking about it.”

 

    “I thought we would be doing this _together_.”

 

    “We _are_ doing this together.”

 

    “No! No, I thought we would be doing this together for the first _time_!”

 

    Aziraphale, bless him, has the balls to gasp, at that. Crowley can’t look at him.

 

    “You mean you…?”

 

    “Yeah. I’ve not done it, and you have.” He folds his arms across his chest. “Go ahead, have a laugh.”

 

    “I’m not laughing.” Aziraphale whispers, taking a step nearer. “Crowley…”

 

    “I was saving myself for you.” He says, and feels Aziraphale’s gentleness go cold in a snap.

 

    “I didn’t ask you to!”

 

    “You didn’t have to ask! Are you angry at me for having done? Are you angry at me for having loved you? Are you angry at me because the idea of anyone else’s touch sickens me? Sickens me! You didn’t ask me, no, I never accused you of asking me. I didn’t save myself for you _for you_ , I saved myself for you because I couldn’t do else. But if I’d known you-- that you could-- I mean, I always thought you just never _would_ , I could’ve made you happy if I’d known you might, and that you ever would with me!”

 

    “Crowley…” Aziraphale reaches out again, conflicted-- enough that Crowley can feel it from where he stands. The familiar urge to reconcile, the still-roiling affront. The desire to hold onto a hurt and the desire to hold onto a love. They have ever been so. A ball of contradictions, but never truly able to stay parted. “You’d have made me happy, or you’d have claimed me before anyone else could sully me for you?”

 

    “Sully-- I never said ‘sully’, you really think I see you that way?” He jerks back from the offered touch.

 

    “I think you’ve been acting a bit-- well!-- since I first suggested you were not my first experience. You’re being possessive and jealous and ridiculous about the whole thing. I can feel it coming off you in waves!”

 

    “I’ve been in love with you, you ass! You drop a bombshell on me and expect me not to have a couple emotions along the way?”

 

    “It shouldn’t _be_ a bombshell, I’ve been on this earth six thousand years.”

 

    “So have I! I thought we were the same! Mostly… sexless! I don’t think you’re _tainted_ , I could never think that about you, the fact you thought for a minute I could…”

 

    “You don’t have some kind of right to me just because you’ve loved me.”

 

    “I didn’t say I had a right to you, when did I say I thought I had a right to you? I told you to stop going on about your conquests when we were about to go to bed together, that’s all. And I said I wish I had known sooner that sex was on the table, because I might not have waited for the end of the world! And I said I had my own reasons for not being with anyone but you, I’d have spent all the time in Creation just not having sex if you hadn’t-- if we weren’t-- Not because you asked me to.”

 

    “You started this conversation.”

 

    “No. No, _you_ said men had offered you everything under the sun, _you_ told me about a man _molesting_ you in a club, _you_ brought other people into this.” His voice trembles. “I just wanted to know if you knew what you wanted. You could’ve told me you’ve done it before without… without-- Fuck’s sake, Aziraphale, even if you’d just told me you knew what you liked from times you chose to do it, but telling me a story about a man grabbing you without asking, just to watch me react…”

 

    “Crowley…” Aziraphale swallows. “But there wasn’t anything _to_ grab at the time, I hadn’t been making an effort when he’d done it, so it really--”

 

    “Is that ever the point? I wanted… I wanted a little romance. And you wanted to watch my face, listening to you casually mention the time you were sexually assaulted. Like it’s a funny story.”

 

    “It wasn’t--”

 

    “What it was or wasn’t to _you_ doesn’t make the man who did it less of a bastard.” And the voice that had trembled is steel. “Maybe you weren’t hurt by it, or offended, maybe it didn’t feel sexual to you so you didn’t take it serious, but don’t tell me you couldn’t feel it in the air, the _intent_. It’s… it’s bad enough, it’s weird and confusing and painful enough, to imagine you with men you chose. _I love you_. And a stranger groping you by the gents’ is not an amusing anecdote to me. And I’m sorry if I need time to sort my feelings out, I’m sorry if I’m a bit possessive, but it’s _cruel_ of you to say these things just because you think I’ll fuck you harder. You don’t get to tease that possessive side out of me for your own pleasure and then lecture me for feeling it. You don’t get to tell me you want to be _possessed_ and then shame me for getting possessive. You don’t get to put words in my mouth when you’re not happy with how I react. I never once believed I had any right to you. I still don’t. Frankly, the fact we’re here is some kind of cosmic mistake, I mean, isn’t it? If you’ve thought better of it now, maybe I should just go.”

 

    “I don’t want you to go. I do love you, I have loved you-- you’re right, it was cruel of me. But I thought you wanted… I thought you wanted to hear those things. I _felt_ you, responding.”

 

    “Well I don’t. I don’t have to want things just because they might turn me on.”

 

    “I’m sorry. Please-- don’t go. I couldn’t bear it if you walked away angry. If I couldn’t make it right. My sexual history is my own, I-- while I certainly have every right not to be ashamed of dalliances I’ve enjoyed or things I’ve learned I like, or men I’ve… entertained, and every right to make my own choices… well. It’s my own. I should have kept more private. I should have asked you if you were all right with hearing those things. I am not ashamed of how I have behaved with other men, Crowley, and I never will be. But… I am ashamed not to have _asked_ _you_ if it bothered you to hear.”

 

    Crowley glances at him, standing there, wringing his hands… the same old Aziraphale, nervous and fussy, thoughtless one moment and achingly empathetic the next… His shoulders droop, and he shuffles half a step nearer, allowing Aziraphale to come forward to wrap him up in a warm hug, in big, soft arms and big, soft wings both. He knocks five books to the floor letting his wings come out, and doesn’t pull away to pick up any of them.

 

    After a long moment, Crowley rests his hands on Aziraphale’s hips.

 

    “I no longer feel very much like having sex tonight.” He informs him.

 

    “Stay just the same. I’ll make you a cup of tea. Cocoa? A little bite to eat? Just don’t go… I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t drive you away after everything… We’ve been through too much for one tiff to end things before they begin.”

 

    “No-- no, you don’t… You ought to drive me off, you and I both know this is… mad. Us. But if you still want me, I’ll take mad.”

 

    “Why wouldn’t I still want you?”

 

    Crowley snorts, hiding his face against Azirapale’s shoulder. “‘Cause I’ve not done it. ‘Cause I won’t be any good. Won’t know what I’m doing. ‘Cause all those other men will have been better than me.”

 

    “You might have said you were self-conscious instead of letting me think you were-- that it was about _me_.” Aziraphale sighs, squeezing him tighter. “When you do feel very much like having sex, you will please me. I know I made something of a production of my… proclivities, and my experience, but it’s really not as difficult as all that. You’ll please me. I’ll show you. And then once you’ve got the jist of it, you’ll… take charge with me. And you’ll do it like no one else could, because you know me as no one else could. It won’t matter what came before. For either of us.”

 

    “You’ve had six thousand years and a bit to work on stamina.”

 

    “Oh, not consistently! And if that’s all you’re worried about, you know, I do have… toys.”

 

    Well. That’s interesting.

 

    “Toys?” He licks his lips. “Er-- not that I’ve changed my mind about tonight, but… what sorts of toys?”

 

    “All sorts. They sell them next door. Softish rubbery ones, smooth glass ones, ones with batteries.”

 

    “... Keeping in mind that what my dick likes and what my heart likes are not necessarily the same thing, and that when in doubt I’d rather you err on the side of my heart, but… stories about the toys, you know, stories without other people in them, you could… If you want to get me feeling competitive, I mean, I could compete with you and the toys?”

 

    “Oh, my dear, _no_ man could compete with some of the toys.” Aziraphale grins, cupping his cheek. “I shall just have to show you. Of course… the toys could never compete with you, either-- not when it comes to anything truly important.”

 

    “Yeah?”

 

    “Keeping in mind that what your dick _does_ is far less important than what your heart does.”

 

    “Never thought I’d hear you say the word ‘dick’.”

 

    “That’s the word you used. I’m just saying… between the two, I am far more interested in the latter. For which there is no replacement in all Creation.”

 

    “I don’t think you’re sullied. I’d never. I didn’t mean to make it sound like that.”

 

    “I know, dear. We… we’ve both been silly and sensitive.”

 

    “Not silly.” He mumbles. “You’re not silly. You shouldn’t be ashamed. Any man’d be lucky to have you just once, I-- Only I had an idea, and… I rehearsed for it, you know. What I’d say and… and how I’d be, and how you’d be, and then there was all this other talk…”

 

    “You rehearsed how you’d seduce me?” Aziraphale smiles so gently, and kisses his other cheek, and holds him close. “Crowley… you don’t have to rehearse for me. It’s only us.”

 

    “Felt pretty momentous. Sex.”

 

    “It isn’t, really.”

 

    “Oh.”

 

    “Love is. I’ve… I’ve had my experience with both, and sexual pleasure is lovely. It is. I think it’s a force for good in the world far more than it is a source of ill. When it’s shared between two people whose only intentions are good, even if it’s only the intention to share fleeting enjoyment, it’s a good thing. It makes people happy and they make others happy, and it’s lovely. But love… my experience with that is rarer and more wonderful. To embark upon a lifetime of love with you shall be momentous in a way not even the most divine sex could be.”

 

    “We’ll still have the divine sex, of course.”

 

    “Oh, yes. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He laughs. Crowley reaches up to stroke at his wing, feeling the barest shiver run through him at the touch. “When you feel like it, love, I shall show you. I shall teach you all I know. And _then_ … I might consent to play the role of the blushing virgin, so you can show me what you’ve rehearsed. Just for fun.”

 

    “Yeah. All right.” Crowley relaxes the rest of the way at last. He doesn’t imagine there won’t be confused feelings along the way, moments of jealousy or questions of whether it could have been different. But he trusts it will be all right now they’ve aired it, now they know they can air it again if they have to and not walk out on each other over it. And anyway… silly to be jealous over a bunch of men who are probably most of them dead, when he’s the one benefitting from Aziraphale’s experience _now_.


End file.
